


The dreams that never came true

by SilentWind



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-17 01:01:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13648137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentWind/pseuds/SilentWind
Summary: Despite what Vulcans told her, Michael Burnham dreams. At first, it's a child's play. Later, it's the only thing that keeps her sane.





	The dreams that never came true

Michael Burnham has just become an orphan and dreams about her parents. She is lost in this strange, new world, full of sun and sand and pointy ears. She wants to go home, to eat her mum’s stew and to play hide-and-seek with her dad. Instead, she sits with the only other human on the planet - her name is Amanda, Michael remembers - and tries to learn Vulcan. The language is hard, the symbols all so similar, but it creates an escape. Here, no one frowns upon her round ears. Here, her parents are still not dead. For just a second, Michael closes her eyes and can almost feel her mother’s arm on her shoulder. She opens her eyes and sees Amanda’s soft smile instead of her mum’s. Michael looks down, trying to decipher the symbols, but instead of the elegant Vulcan letters, the pages are covered with basic. _Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank._ She hears Amanda’s voice filling the quiet of the afternoon and finds another escape.

Michael Burnham wakes up one morning in her First Officer’s quarters and dreams about her own ship. The dream is nothing new, it has been there ever since she first took the place by Phillippa’s side. She looks at herself in the mirror brushing her teeth and wonders how she will look in the captain’s uniform, boldly going where no man has gone before. She is curious - what civilisations will she meet, what landing parties will she lead. She knows her day will come, and she doesn’t wish for it to come sooner. ‘Everything happens at the right time’, she says to herself as she pins the first officer insignia to her uniform. 

Michael Burnham says “guilty” and dreams about a prison cell. She knows she is guilty - of mutiny, of war, of Phillipa’s death. She feels out of place in the uniform. She knows this is the last time she wears it, that she should cherish this moment, but she wants to put on the prisoners’ yellows. She doesn’t deserve to still be who she used to be when Phillipa was still here. When she hears her sentence, she is relieved. When they take off her insignia, she doesn’t fight. When she walks into her cell, she knows she is where she belongs. 

Michael Burnham accepts Lorca’s offer and dreams about redemption. She started this war and she will end it. She would die on a frontline, dedicate her every breath to the war effort, become the best science consultant Starfleet has ever had. When Federation wins, there’s no other scenario, she goes back to where she came from knowing she made up for her sins. She wants to get the blood off her hands, to be clean once again. She may not understand lieutenant Stamets’ work, but she knows enough to fully dedicate herself to it. Slowly, she learns the mycelial network is the water she needed to wash her hands. 

Michael Burnham kisses Ash Tyler and dreams about a happy ending. For the first time in her adult life, she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand why this feels the way it does - pleasant, comforting. Doesn’t understand why she closes her eyes as their lips meet. Logically, she knows they have no future - in hers, there’s prison, in his, there’s a lake. Her heart, though, has other plans. Her heart claims that there’s only one future - theirs. They sit in the backyard of her childhood home holding hands, Amanda smiling, Sarek stoic and Spock visibly confused. She runs her thumb over his knuckles and for once she wants to believe her heart.

Michael Burnham boards ISS Shenzhou and dreams about home. She wonders how long can she pretend to be like them before she becomes one of them. She stares into a void as the Kelpian washes her hair. Even the light here is different, the cosmos has lost its brilliance. She misses Tilly’s chatter and Paul’s mushroom-induced mood swings. She misses the stars. Michael has never been afraid of death. She has always known it will come. As the Kelpian helps her out of the bath tube she realises, for the first time in her life, that she doesn’t want to die. Not here, where she betrays herself every day and wonders how long she can do this before it kills her. Not here, where she would be buried as captain Michael Burnham, the butcher from the Binary. She can be blown up, tortured or publicly humiliated by Klingons, as long as she gets to take her last breath under the familiar stars. Where she will be buried as specialist Burnham, the mutineer. She never knew she had home until she left it.

Michael Burnham leaves Ash Tyler’s quarters and dreams about peace. The tears are slowly finding their way down her cheeks, the stress of the day finally catching up with her. The images from the last 24 hours flashing in her mind, as clear as the lines on the ship's floor. Ash’s eyes, full of loss, a reflection of a man no longer knowing who he is. Stamets eyes, so full of joy to see the mushrooms grow and so full of sadness when he realised Hugh would never see it. The shock in Admiral’s eyes when she saw what was left after Starbase One. The tiredness in Tilly’s eyes. There’s nothing she wants more than to take the pain away from these people. To put Hugh back next to Paul, to rebuild Starbase One, to show Tilly the beauty of exploration. They were Starfleet officers, after all, they were explorers. Starfleet officers were never meant to be soldiers, the war was never supposed to be their faith. Michael Burnham was never meant to be in love, heartbreak was never supposed to be her faith. Walking deserted corridors of the Discovery she realises the Klingons are may not the only enemy that has to be defeated. 

Michael Burnham curls into a ball on her bed and dreams about her parents. She wishes they could be here to explain why it hurts so much to breathe.


End file.
